Fox News personality Jesse Watters was forced to issue a clarification Wednesday morning after his joke about Ivanka Trump on “The Five” was widely interpreted as lewd.

Mr. Watters, who got his start on “The O’Reilly Factor” before the show’s host, Bill O’Reilly, lost his job amid a sexual harassment scandal last week, was commenting on a clip of Ms. Trump speaking at a women’s conference in Germany.

Mr. Watters criticized the women in the audience who booed the first daughter as she talked about her father’s policies.

“You know, the left says they really respect women and then when given the opportunity to respect a woman like that, they boo and hiss,” Mr. Watters said.

“I don’t really get what’s going on here, but I really liked how she was speaking into that microphone,” he added, smiling.

The comment fell flat among his co-hosts, and Kimberly Guilfoyle quickly moved on to the next question.

The joke caused a social media uproar with accusations that the former Mr. O’Reilly protege had made a sexually explicit joke about the first daughter. Mr. Watters, who has generated controversy in the past with his man-on-the-street interviews, took to Twitter Wednesday morning to clarify that he was talking about the tone of Ms. Trump’s voice.

“On air I was referring to Ivanka’s voice and how it resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ,” he wrote. “This was in no way a joke about anything else.”

On air I was referring to Ivanka’s voice and how it resonates like a smooth jazz radio DJ. This was in no way a joke about anything else.